The leader held out a hand to help Rae over the gunwale. His fingers were strong and callused, stronger than she thought a human’s would be. He had buzzed black hair and blue eyes with no warmth in them whatsoever.
Rae’s jacket was zipped all the way up, her Collar hidden, but she ducked her head, still playing submissive, in case a gleam of Collar betrayed her.
The man didn’t help Piotr, but Piotr, at home on boats, stepped onto the other vessel without losing his balance.
The leader wrapped steely fingers around Rae’s arm and marched her toward the pilot house, whose door opened onto the side deck. This boat was a little bigger than Zander’s, though Rae didn’t know enough about boats to guess how large it was. It was longer and wider, was all she could tell, and had no stands for fishing poles.
She did see that this boat didn’t belong to the police or the Coast Guard. There were no official logos or symbols anywhere, which meant this man wasn’t connected to any law enforcement agency. He was a vigilante, she guessed, or a bounty hunter, which made him potentially more dangerous than the police or even Shifter Bureau.
The men and women who hunted Shifters for bounty, or just for the hell of it, didn’t follow any rules but their own. If the hunted died before they could be brought in . . . oh well.
The leader pushed Rae through the door to the pilot house. The dank coolness of the fog was cut off as he closed the door behind her, leaving her in a small stuffy room, poorly lit, smelling strongly of diesel and sulfur, which messed up her scenting ability.
The large man at the boat’s wheel didn’t even glance her way, so intent was he on holding the boat steady. Rae noted immediately that he had a gun in a holster at his right hip.
The pilot was large but not portly—muscles filled out his body, his bare arms tight and sporting tattoos of interlocked spirals. He had black skin, close-cropped black hair tinged with gray, and more gray in the whiskers trimmed against his face. His face itself was square-jawed, his dark eyes shrewd but not cruel. This man’s hardness was different from that of the leader—the pilot was honed from fighting, but he probably relaxed with friends after the fighting was over. Rae didn’t think the man outside ever relaxed.
“Did those Shifters kidnap you?” the pilot asked.
Rae nodded meekly. It was warm enough in here that she wished she could unzip the coat but she couldn’t with the sword and her Collar hidden inside. She folded her arms and lived with it.
“Well, you’re safe now,” the pilot said. “Sit down over there.” He pointed to a bench built into the wall. “We’ll get you home.”
He returned to peering nervously out at the fog and the wrecked boats too near them, his hands never leaving the wheel.
“Who are you?” Rae asked, curiosity working through her fear.
He didn’t look at her. “Name’s Miles. You all right?”
“Yes. Thanks.”
Rae craned to look past him. Ezra and Piotr were nowhere in sight—they must have been taken belowdecks already. The two flunkies were again on Zander’s boat, lifting Zander’s limp body between them. Zander hung lifelessly, big and heavy, but the two men managed to carry him across to this craft without dropping him.
“Put them in the cages,” she heard the leader outside say. “Lock the doors tight and make sure the shock chains are secured around them.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Rae swallowed. “Does he have a cage strong enough for Shifters?” she asked the pilot in a timid voice.
“Yeah. Don’t you worry, ma’am.” Miles sounded as though he wasn’t used to reassuring people. He didn’t know what to say, and he was more concerned with keeping the vessel afloat.
“Who is he?” Rae asked.
“Who is who?” Miles adjusted the wheel the slightest bit. “Oh, you mean Carson. Carson McCade. This is his boat.”
“You work for him?”
The big man shrugged. “I work with him. I get my cut. But don’t worry about the Shifters anymore. They’ll be taken where they won’t hurt anyone ever again.”
Rae thought about tranquilizers. The ones for Shifters were powerful and lasted a long time—Eoin occasionally had to use them to stop fights from getting out of hand. But there were Shifters, and then there were Shifters. Zander was bigger than most, being a bear, and a polar bear at that.
Rae had heard of a Shifter in Texas, a tiger, who had to be shot with several rounds of tranqs before he’d even get sleepy. That Shifter was a little different from the others—he’d apparently been born in a lab, the result of experiments. Even so, Zander had gone down a bit too quickly.
Rae also thought about cages. Ones for Shifters had to be specially reinforced because Shifters could kick their way out of anything. Shifter Bureau had cages laced with the same kind of chains as the Collars, to shock if the Shifter tried to break out. Carson’s words to his men told Rae he had cages on board specifically designed for Shifters and that Zander was being locked into one.
With all that in mind, Rae calculated how long it would take Zander to get out of his cage and up on deck.
Possibly not long. He’d need help though.
Exactly how she’d overpower Miles, who was large, strong, and armed, and take over the wheelhouse, Rae had no idea. Before she could start thinking about what to do the man called Carson yanked open the door and strode inside.
“Let’s get this thing turned around,” he snapped at Miles.
“Easy for you to say.” Miles moved controls. The boat jumped a little then began to move smoothly backward.
Carson opened a cabinet, removed the scope from his rifle, and carefully tucked the rifle and scope inside. He locked the cabinet with a key and slid the key into his pocket.
He studied Rae a moment or two with his unnerving eyes, then moved to her. He, like Miles, wore a pistol in a holster.
“What’s your name?” Carson asked her.
“Rae.” Easier not to lie.
“What were you doing to get yourself nabbed by Shifters, Rae? You from Homer?”
“No.” Again, she had the feeling he’d easily spot a lie. “I was there visiting. I went to the bar.” Rae shrugged. “There was a fight and I got taken off with them.” Plausible and very close to what had happened.
Carson’s eyes narrowed. They were lake blue, but that lake never had any sun on it.